Gary W. Keller is a famous American entrepreneur and best-selling author.
He is the co-founder and Chairman of Keller Williams Realty International, the world’s largest real estate company by agent count.
Born to a family of educators, his upbringing fostered an educational approach to success.
Keller’s books, including “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent”, “The Real Estate Investor” and “The ONE Thing”, are born out of his philosophy to make his teachings accessible to all.
He attributes his success to meticulous planning, goal setting and thinking big.
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He not only revolutionized real estate with his agent-first model but also delved into publishing, philanthropy and education. Keller’s venture capital firm, Keller Capital, invests in transformative ideas and his nonprofit, ALL ATX, supports local musicians.
He’s received numerous accolades for his contributions and his inspiring quotes from “The ONE Thing” continue to guide aspirants towards their goals.
Top 10 Gary Keller Quotes
1. “It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” ~ (Gary Keller).
2. “No one succeeds alone. No one.” ~ (Gary Keller).
3. “Purpose without priority is powerless.” ~ (Gary Keller).
4. “The key is over time. Success is built sequentially. It’s one thing at a time.” ~ (Gary Keller).
5. “When you gamble with your time, you may be placing a bet you can’t cover.” ~ (Gary Keller).
6. “Multitasking is a scam.” ~ (Gary Keller).
7. “There is no failure. You win or you learn. Either one is okay.” ~ (Gary Keller).
8. “In your effort to attend to all things, everything gets shortchanged and nothing gets its due.” ~ (Gary Keller).
9. “If you don’t take care of your body, where will you live?” ~ (Gary Keller).
10. “A big, specific question leads to a big, specific answer, which is absolutely necessary for achieving a big goal.” ~ (Gary Keller).
Most Inspiring Gary Keller Quotes
11. “What starts out linear becomes geometric. You.” ~ (Gary Keller).
12. “Until my ONE Thing is done – everything else is a distraction.” ~ (Gary Keller).
13. “When you act on your priority, you’ll automatically go out of balance, giving more time to one thing over another.” ~ (Gary Keller).
14. “When you act on your priority, you’ll automatically go out of balance, giving more time to one thing over another.” ~ (Gary Keller).
15. “Not everything matters equally, and success isn’t a game won by whoever does the most. Yet that is exactly how most play it on a daily basis.” ~ (Gary Keller).
16. “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself not the life others expected of me.” ~ (Gary Keller).
17. “Every minute of every day, the question is never will we be doing something, but rather what that something is we’ll be doing. Sometimes.” ~ (Gary Keller).
18. “Going small” is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do. It’s recognizing that not all things matter equally and finding the things that matter most. It’s a tighter way to connect what you do with what you want. It’s realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.” ~ (Gary Keller).
19. “Getting extraordinary results is all about creating a domino effect in your life.” ~ (Gary Keller).
20. “Happiness happens when you have a bigger purpose than having more fulfills, which is why we say happiness happens on the way to fulfillment.” ~ (Gary Keller).
21. “Where I’d had huge success, I had narrowed my concentration to one thing, and where my success varied, my focus had too.” ~ (Gary Keller).
22. “There are so many great reasons to devote all of your time and effort to taking and marketing listings. The Millionaire Real Estate Agent grasps the incredible advantages of making, obtaining, and marketing seller listings their primary lead-generation focus, and they do so almost exclusively. Over time, they will hire one or more buyer specialists to work the buyer side of the business and concentrate their energy on the high-return, high-leverage business of listings.” ~ (Gary Keller).
23. “When you see someone who has a lot of knowledge, they learned it over time. When you see someone who has a lot of skills, they developed them over time. When you see someone who has done a lot, they accomplished it over time. When you see someone who has a lot of money, they earned it over time. The key is over time. Success.” ~ (Gary Keller).
24. “One of the most empowering moments of my life came when I realized that life is a question and how we live it is our answer.” ~ (Gary Keller).
Powerful Gary Keller Quotes
Gary Keller is an author and business person. He is best known for writing The One Thing, a book about how to be successful by focusing on one thing at a time.
25. “Adopt a growth mindset, and don’t be afraid of where it can take you. Extraordinary results aren’t built solely on extraordinary results. They’re built on failure too. In fact, it would be accurate to say that we fail our way to success. When we fail, we stop, ask what we need to do to succeed, learn from our mistakes, and grow. Don’t be afraid to fail. See it as part of your learning process and keep striving for your true potential.” ~ (Gary Keller).
26. “Multitasking is a lie. It’s a lie because nearly everyone accepts it as an effective thing to do. It’s become so mainstream that people actually think it’s something they should do, and do as often as possible. We not only hear talk about doing it, we even hear talk about getting better at it. More.” ~ (Gary Keller).
27. “Everyone has one person who either means the most to them or was the first to influence, train, or manage them. No one succeeds alone. No one.” ~ (Gary Keller).
28. “The reason we shouldn’t pursue balance is that the magic never happens in the middle; magic happens at the extremes.” ~ (Gary Keller).
29. “The problem is we tend to act on what we believe even when what we believe isn’t anything we should.” ~ (Gary Keller).
30. “When you say yes to something, it’s imperative that you understand what you’re saying no to.” ~ (Gary Keller).
31. “Equality is a lie. Understanding this is the basis of all great decisions.” ~ (Gary Keller).
32. “Your talent and abilities are limited resources. Your time is finite. If you don’t make your life about what you say yes to, then it will almost certainly become what you intended to say no to.” ~ (Gary Keller).
33. “When everything feels urgent and important, everything seems equal. We become active and busy, but this doesn’t actually move us any closer to success. Activity is often unrelated to productivity, and busyness rarely takes care of business.” ~ (Gary Keller).
Inspirational Gary Keller Quotes
34. “My mom lived to be ninety-five. Every morning I would ask her, “Are you going to have a good day?” She would always answer, “I choose to have a good day. I don’t have enough days left in my life to have a bad one.” She was right, she didn’t. And neither do I!” ~ (Gary Keller).
35. “Purpose, meaning, significance – these are what make a successful life. Seek them and you will most certainly live your life out of balance, criss-crossing an invisible middle line as you pursue your priorities. The act of living a full life by giving time to what matters is a balancing act.” ~ (Gary Keller).
36. “Voltaire once wrote, “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” Sir Francis Bacon added, “A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.” Indira Gandhi concluded that “the power to question is the basis of all human progress.” Great questions are clearly the quickest path to great answers.” ~ (Gary Keller).
37. “When you strive for greatness, chaos is guaranteed to show up.” ~ (Gary Keller).
38. “Don’t fear big. Fear mediocrity. Fear waste. Fear the lack of living to your fullest.” ~ (Gary Keller).
39. “When you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them.” ~ (Gary Keller).
40. “Achievers operate differently. They have an eye for the essential. They pause just long enough to decide what matters and then allow what matters to drive their day. Achievers do sooner what others plan to do later and defer, perhaps indefinitely, what others do sooner. The difference isn’t in intent, but in right of way. Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.” ~ (Gary Keller).
41. “The way to get the most out of your work and your life is to go as small as possible.” ~ (Gary Keller).
42. “You do the right thing and then you do the next right thing. Over time it adds up, and the geometric potential of success is unleashed.” ~ (Gary Keller).
43. “Super-successful people aren’t superhuman at all; they’ve just used selected discipline to develop a few significant habits. One at a time. Over time.” ~ (Gary Keller).
44. “The ability to control oneself to determine one’s actions is a pretty powerful idea. Base.” ~ (Gary Keller).
45. “Passion for something leads to disproportionate time practicing or working at it. That time spent eventually translates to skill, and when skill improves, results improve. Better results generally lead to more enjoyment, and more passion and more time is invested. It can be a virtuous cycle all the way to extraordinary results.” ~ (Gary Keller).
46. “Most assume mastery is an end result, but at its core, mastery is a way of thinking, a way of acting, and a journey you experience. When.” ~ (Gary Keller).
47. “Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.” ~ (Gary Keller).
48. “Thinking big is essential to extraordinary results. Success requires action, and action requires thought. But here’s the catch – the only actions that become springboards to succeeding big are those informed by big thinking to begin with. Make this connection, and the importance of how big you think begins to sink in.” ~ (Gary Keller).
49. “A Great Answer is essentially a new answer.” ~ (Gary Keller).
50. “Achievement doesn’t require you to be a full-time disciplined person where your every action is trained and where control is the solution to every situation. Success is actually a short race – a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.” ~ (Gary Keller).
51. “Achievement doesn’t require you to be a full-time disciplined person where your every action is trained and where control is the solution to every situation. Success is actually a short race – a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.” ~ (Gary Keller).
52. “No one knows their ultimate ceiling for achievement, so worrying about it is a waste of time.” ~ (Gary Keller).
53. “Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.” ~ (Gary Keller).
54. “As you experience big, you become big.” ~ (Gary Keller).
Famous Gary Keller Quotes
55. “While decisions tap our willpower, the food we eat is also a key player in our level of willpower.” ~ (Gary Keller).
56. “No matter how many to-dos you start with, you can always narrow it to one. Keep going. You can actually take 20 percent of the 20 percent of the 20 percent and continue until you get to the single most important thing!” ~ (Gary Keller).
57. “Most people think buying is investing, but they’re wrong. Buying doesn’t make you an investor any more than buying groceries makes you a chef.” ~ (Gary Keller).
58. “Because I want my life to matter, I approach each area by doing what matters most in it. I view these as the cornerstones of my life and have found that when I’m doing what’s most important in each area, my life feels like it’s running on all cylinders.” ~ (Gary Keller).
59. “It’s realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.” ~ (Gary Keller).
60. “Success requires action, and action requires thought. But.” ~ (Gary Keller).
61. “I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.” ~ (Gary Keller).
62. “Be like a postage stamp–stick to one thing until you get there.” ~ (Gary Keller).
63. “Saying yes to everyone is the same as saying yes to nothing. Each additional obligation chips away at your effectiveness at everything you try.” ~ (Gary Keller).
64. “Multitasking doesn’t save time – it wastes time.” ~ (Gary Keller).
65. “No one is self-made.” ~ (Gary Keller).
66. “If today your company doesn’t know what its ONE Thing is, then the company’s ONE Thing is to find out.” ~ (Gary Keller).
67. “You can say no with respect, you can say no promptly, and you can say no with a lead to someone who might say yes. But just saying yes because you can’t bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work.” ~ (Gary Keller).
68. “When we give people segmented attention, piecemeal time, switching back and forth, the switching cost is higher than just the time involved. We end up damaging relationships.” Every time I see a couple dining with one partner trying earnestly to communicate while the other is texting under the table, I’m reminded of the simple truth of that statement.” ~ (Gary Keller).
69. “When people talk about “reinventing” their career or their business, small boxes are often the root cause. What you build today will either empower or restrict you tomorrow. It will either serve as a platform for the next level of your success or as a box, trapping you where you are.” ~ (Gary Keller).
70. “Knocking out a hundred tasks for whatever the reason is a poor substitute for doing even one task that’s meaningful.” ~ (Gary Keller).
Short Gary Keller Quotes
71. “If you can honestly say, “This is where I’m meant to be right now, doing exactly what I’m doing,” then all the amazing possibilities for your life become possible.” ~ (Gary Keller).
72. “Cosby read some advice that he took to heart: “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” ~ (Gary Keller).
73. “We each have passions and skills, but you’ll see extraordinarily successful people with one intense emotion or one learned ability that shines through, defining them or driving them more than anything else.” ~ (Gary Keller).
74. “When we fear big, we either consciously or subconsciously work against it.” ~ (Gary Keller).
75. “So the more things you do, the less successful you are at any one of them.” ~ (Gary Keller).
76. “Our past is but a former now, our future a potential one.” ~ (Gary Keller).
77. “Knowing when to pursue the middle and when to pursue the extremes is in essence the true beginning of wisdom. Extraordinary.” ~ (Gary Keller).
78. “Anyone who dreams of an uncommon life eventually discovers there is no choice but to seek an uncommon approach to living it.” ~ (Gary Keller).
79. “Here’s what I found out: We overthink, overplan, and overanalyze our careers, our businesses, and our lives; that long hours are neither virtuous nor healthy; and that we usually succeed in spite of most of what we do, not because of it.” ~ (Gary Keller).
80. “Don’t fear failure. It’s as much a part of your journey to extraordinary results as success.” ~ (Gary Keller).
81. “When life happens, you can be either the author of your life or the victim of it. Those are your only two choices – accountable or unaccountable. This may sound harsh, but it’s true. Every day we choose one approach or the other, and the consequences follow us forever.” ~ (Gary Keller).
82. “Mastery is a commitment to becoming your best, so to achieve extraordinary results you must embrace the extraordinary effort it represents.” ~ (Gary Keller).
83. “Since there is always another level to learn, mastery actually means you’re a master of what you know and an apprentice of what you don’t. In other words, we become masters of what is behind us and apprentices for what is ahead. This is why mastery is a journey. Alex.” ~ (Gary Keller).
84. “Success builds on success, and as this happens, over and over, you move toward the highest success possible.” ~ (Gary Keller).
85. “If it’s to be, it will be me.” ~ (Gary Keller).
86. “It’s important to realize that on the journey to achieving big, you get bigger. Big requires growth, and by the time you arrive, you’re big too! What seemed an insurmountable mountain from a distance is just a small hill when you arrive – at least in proportion to the person you’ve become. Your thinking, your skills, your relationships, your sense of what is possible and what it takes all grow on the journey to big. As you experience big, you become big.” ~ (Gary Keller).
87. “Leaving some things undone is a necessary tradeoff for extraordinary results.” ~ (Gary Keller).
88. “If you were trying to talk a passenger through landing a DC-10, you’d stop walking. Likewise, if you were walking across a gorge on a rope bridge, you’d likely stop talking.” ~ (Gary Keller).
Inspiring Gary Keller Quotes
89. “Instead of a to-do list, you need a success list – a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results.” ~ (Gary Keller).
90. “The doors to the world have been flung wide open, and the view that’s available is staggering. Through technology and innovation, opportunities abound and possibilities seem endless. As inspiring as this can be, it can be equally overwhelming. The unintended consequence of abundance is that we are bombarded with more information and choices in a day than our ancestors received in a lifetime. Harried and hurried, a nagging sense that we attempt too much and accomplish too little haunts our days.” ~ (Gary Keller).
91. “Albert Einstein had Max Talmud, his first mentor. It was Max who introduced a ten-year-old Einstein to key texts in math, science, and philosophy. Max took one meal a week with the Einstein family for six years while guiding young Albert. No one is self-made.” ~ (Gary Keller).
92. “So, if you want to get the most out of your day, do your most important work – your ONE Thing – early, before your willpower is drawn down. Since your self-control will be sapped throughout the day, use it when it’s at full strength on what matters most.” ~ (Gary Keller).
93. “Every day, without realizing it, we engage in all manner of activities that diminish our willpower. Willpower is depleted when we make decisions to focus our attention, suppress our feelings and impulses, or modify our behavior in pursuit of goals. It’s like taking an ice pick and gouging a hole in our gas line. Before long we have willpower leaking everywhere and none left to do our most important work. So like any other limited but vital resource, willpower must be managed.” ~ (Gary Keller).
94. “The truth is that things don’t matter equally and success is found in doing what matters most.” ~ (Gary Keller).
95. “It’s important for you to accept this instead of fighting it. Oscar-winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola warns us that “anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.” In other words, get used to it and get over it.” ~ (Gary Keller).
96. “But juggling isn’t multitasking. Juggling is an illusion.” ~ (Gary Keller).
97. “Big ideas distraction is natural. Don’t feel bad when you get distracted. Everyone gets distracted. Multitasking takes a toll. At home or at work, distractions lead to poor choices, painful mistakes, and unnecessary stress. Distraction undermines results. When you try to do too much at once, you can end up doing nothing well. Figure out what matters most in the moment and give it your undivided attention.” ~ (Gary Keller).
98. “Tackling these tasks in the order we receive them is behaving as if the squeaky wheel immediately deserves the grease. But, as Australian prime minister Bob Hawke duly noted, “The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest.” ~ (Gary Keller).
99. “Purpose is the straightest path to power and the ultimate source of personal strength – strength.” ~ (Gary Keller).
100. “Lacking a clear formula for making decisions, we get reactive and fall back on familiar, comfortable ways to decide what to do. Pinballing through our day like a confused character in a B-horror movie, we end up running up the stairs instead of out the front door. The best decision gets traded for any decision.” ~ (Gary Keller).
101. “Lacking a clear formula for making decisions, we get reactive and fall back on familiar, comfortable ways to decide what to do.” ~ (Gary Keller).
102. “Going small, if everyone has the same number of hours in a day, why do some people seem to get so much more done than others? How do they do more, achieve more, earn more, have more? If time is the currency of achievement, then why are some able to cash in their allotment for more chips than others? The answer is they make getting to the heart of things the heart of their approach. They go small.” ~ (Gary Keller).
